To mend a Broken Ninja
by ellie.dulcie-xx
Summary: After Kakashi loses everyone dear to him, he throws himself into ANBU - with a death wish. All he wants is to die. But can a young Jinchuriki help rescue him from the darkness? Oneshot. Pre-Canon. Random sort-of Fluff Bunny


Kakashi was an ANBU, and that meant many things. It meant he hunted from the shadows. That he killed and assassinated. It meant he had done things that were so despicable that he would never speak of them again, and had lost so much in the process. But most of all, being an ANBU meant that you could not show emotions, for they were a weakness.

However, Kakashi was different from the other ANBU. He didn't go through his missions, striving to come back to see his loved ones. There was no one left for him. So, on every mission he went on, Kakashi hoped for death. But he would not let his comrades die. Not any more. So while he strove for death, he didn't follow in the footsteps of his father and push a tanto through his guts.

He thought about his father often, these days. Now that Minato and Kushina had gone, there was no one left to live for. He wondered if his father felt the same way he did, and just got tired of waiting for his death. Kakashi was beginning to get tired of waiting.

But, everyday, without fail, he would put on his armour and his ANBU mask, and continue to live. He was beginning to think he was cursed. Whenever he began to care for people - Obito, Rin, his Father, Minato, Kushina - they would die, and he would be forced to continue on his treacherous path without them. It hurt him, in a way he couldn't fully comprehend.

He ignored Naruto and his plight for that reason. He was so small to carry such a large burden - the fox he had carried all his life. And he looked so much like Minato, and acted so much like Kushina, that it truly hurt Kakashi. So, instead of helping the boy the village owed so much to, he buried himself in the ANBU, and then spent every free moment he had at the Memorial Stone - apologising to his dead friends for the mistakes he had made, as well as the ones he was yet to make.

So when Kakashi was told to come to the Hokage's office - not as an ANBU, not for a mission, just as Kakashi Hatake - it came as a bit of a shock. Was he being dropped from ANBU? Had he made a mistake? How could he live without ANBU to drown his sorrows? He'd end up following his father if he no longer had the dark masks of the ANBU to hide behind.

But nevertheless, he went to the office anyway - his spiky gravity defying hair, his headband covering his sharingan - _Obito's Sharingan_ \- and his blue mask firmly in place, covering his mouth and nose. He walked leisurely through Konoha, his face buried in his bright orange book, as he ignored all human interaction. He tried not to panic about what this meeting was about, but his mind kept drifting back to the subject. But nevertheless, he grit his teeth, steeling himself, and walked into the Hokage tower. He moved through the rush of people in the building, keeping to the edges of each room, like a shadow, dancing round the huge piles of paperwork being carted back and forth by harried Chunin. Kakashi paused outside the Hokage's office - he could hear voices within. One of them was constant and high - a child or woman - and the other was the low even tone of the Third Hokage - though he seemed to be listening to the other voice, which hadn't stopped at all during all the time Kakashi had been listening. The masked Ninja closed his single visible eye, sending out his chakra to try and sense who was in the office (maybe he could figure out what this meeting was about). He froze. Kakashi's eye snapped open, and he stared at the door in front of him in horror.

Naruto.

He wasn't ready for this. It had only been six years. Sure, he'd been looking out for Konoha's resident Jinchuriki over the years (someone had to. For Minato-sensei's sake), but this would be the first time Kakashi had ever come face to face with the miniature copy of his Sensei. He knew, from pictures, that Naruto looked just like his father did, and according to Sandaime-sama, he acted just like Kushina had (it was shocking no one had figured out the boy's parentage yet). The infamous Copy-Ninja steeled himself, taking a deep breath, he knocked on the office door, and entered the Hokage's room.

Kakashi watched as Naruto froze mid-sentence, his eyes wide with… was that fear? The tiny boy darted behind the Third Hokage, peering out at Kakashi with curiosity and suspicion from behind the older man. It pained Kakashi to see the Jinchuuriki look at him in such a way - if the Nine-Tails had never got free from Kushina, he would have been like a brother to Naruto, if Minato and Kushina had had their way (and they usually did).

"You summoned me, Sandaime-sama," Kakashi drawled, pulling his orange book out of a pocket in his flak jacket, and ducking his face behind it. Kakashi heard a small gasp of breath - definitely from Naruto - and with speed that rivalled the Yellow Flash himself, a tiny head of yellow hair was peeking over the top of his book. Kakashi lowered the novel, and was faced with the bright shining blue eyes of Naruto Uzumaki.

"You mean you're Hatake Sakumo's son?!" Naruto called out. Kakashi sighed. Even now, his father's actions and the shame they brought, were still hanging

over his head. Dogging his every move, giving him-

"That's so cool!" Naruto's bright, cheerful voice interrupted the last Hatake's dreary thought process. Kakashi's one visible eye widened, as he stared down at the bubbly Jinchuriki in front of him.

"...wha-" Kakashi really didn't understand what was going on, at all.

"Naruto." The Hokage said patiently, interrupting the small boys mindless blabbering. The blond child looked up at him, his bright blue eyes shining. "I think you should explain to Kakashi here, what is going on. I think he is confused." Kakashi nodded mutely, looking down at his Sensei's son expectantly.

The boy nodded brightly, before taking a deep breath and beginning to talk.

"Well, at the Academy we have to write about a hero of the Leaf, and the teachers had a list for people to choose from, but they'd run out of people to do by the time it was my turn, so they said that I had to find someone to do myself - but not someone that someone else was already doing - and that was really hard, but the Old-man helped me, and I want to do the White Fang, because I think that people should value their precious people, and that his decision to rescue his comrades instead of finishing his mission was the right one to make. When I become Hokage, I'm going to be super powerful, and I'll have the power to protect those who are precious to me, like the Old-man, and Teuchi-jiji, and Ayame-chan. Just like the White Fang did!"

Kakashi was speechless. Did his Sensei's son really believe that his Father - the man Kakashi had been pretending didn't exist - was a hero? Kakashi found himself remembering when Obito had said the exact same thing, just before he had died. Compared to everything else that had happened that day, the Copy-nin had forgotten the moment that Obito had declared his Father a 'True Hero', even though that had been one of the things that had helped him decide to go after Rin.

Kakashi was snapped out of his thought by the sound of the Sandaime chuckling to himself as Naruto began to drag the frozen ANBU towards the Hokage's Desk.

"So what was your Dad like?" Naruto asked Kakashi happily, grabbing a crumpled sheet of paper and a broken pencil from his pocket. "I wish I could have met him… He sounds super cool! I think he would have been nice to me." Naruto trailed off at the end, sadly, while Kakashi felt guilt settle over him. He should have been there for Naruto - like his Sensei had been for him.

But Naruto looked too much like Minato had, and acted far too much like Kushina, for Kakashi to stay in his presence for long, so he didn't think he could manage to look after Naruto.

But he would help him with his assignment - it was the least he could do. Kakashi had never spoken about his Father to other people - in fact he had always tried his best to forget about him - so it took him a while to get started, but once he found his voice, he just talked. At some point, the Sandaime left the room, but Kakashi didn't notice till much later. Naruto sat in front of him, paying rapt attention to every word he said, jotting it down on his sheet of paper in a chicken-scratch that could barely be considered writing. Kakashi felt a great deal of pity for whoever his teacher was.

It was many hours later that Kakashi stopped talking. Naruto looked like he was about to fall asleep, but had dutifully listened to everything he had said. Kakashi felt as though he had been laid bare. And if, halfway through his conversation, Kakashi had started crying, well, no one would ever mention it again.

.o0o.

Later that week, Kakashi chose to quit ANBU, just like Minato-Sensei had wanted. He also requested to become Naruto's Jonin-sensei when he eventually graduated. As he had swore all those years ago at Kannabi Bridge on that fateful day, he would protect those who were precious to him, and Kakashi had finally found someone worth fighting for.

.

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 **A.N.**

 **This is just a fluff bunny that I thought of a while back. Naruto has always seemed to have the same beliefs as Sakumo Hatake had (protect your comrades over everything), and so I figured that he would view him as a hero. Since Kakashi struggles to forgive his Father's actions, I figured this would be a nice way for him to start in the road to forgiveness, as well as give a reason for him quitting ANBU.**

 **The picture isn't actually mine - I found it on Pinterest. Credit to original artist.**

 **Please review and tell me what you think.**


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